


Traces

by NikaV



Series: Unknown [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: (implied) - Freeform, Dr Nyarlathotep, Gen, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24302674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikaV/pseuds/NikaV
Summary: Jack and his team investigate something in Cardiff.
Series: Unknown [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726297
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Traces

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively: the morning after 'Invader'.

The Torchwood team had had a good, relatively quiet morning, despite their very early start. There had been coffee and tea (the best), there had been some basketball (nothing too exhausting), and there hadn’t been any alarms from the Rift (a real blessing). 

So when Captain Jack Harkness went out around lunchtime to procure some sustenance for all of them, he was rather surprised to find himself standing in nearly an inch of snow. 

Since it was still early autumn, this was quite unexpected. 

What made the whole thing even stranger, however, was the fact that it was a very-much-above-freezing 16 degrees Celsius outside, and even the sun was doing its very best to make the day a pleasant one. 

Alarmed, Jack bent down and picked up a handful of the strange white substance that couldn’t be snow. 

Indeed, closer inspection revealed that the snow was in fact ash. 

The Captain immediately turned on his heel upon discovering this fact, lunch promptly forgotten, and rushed back inside, still carrying the handful of ashes. 

He started ordering his team around as soon as he came in hearing distance. 

“Owen! Get your ass to the microscope! Tosh, check the Rift computers, see if they picked up anything unusual in the past day. Gwen – you can check the weather reports. Last but not least, Ianto, please make us some more of your wonderful coffee.” 

After the team started following his orders, Jack first went over to Owen, handing the scowling man the handful of ashes. 

“What is this supposed to be?” he demanded, with a disgusted look on his face. 

“The whole of Cardiff is covered in ashes. See if you can find out what from,” the Captain clarified. Even as he said it, he was already moving on towards Gwen, who was closest. 

“It’s not just Cardiff,” she informed him, “I’ve got freak weather reports of snow as far as Swansea and Bristol. Exmoor National Park is covered as well. There are reports of clouds of dust, too.” 

“Dust clouds? Might be ash as well. Where have they been reported?” 

“Most of Northwestern Europe, actually.” 

Jack cursed, though not loudly. 

He was interrupted by Toshiko, who waved him over to her computers. 

“See here, Jack? There was a large atmospheric disturbance in the early morning – around 5:15,” she informed him while pointing at something on the screen. 

Jack had a closer look, before drawing his conclusions. 

“So, we had something really big blow up just inside our atmosphere, at around 5:15 AM, and the ashes are currently drifting to the ground. Does that sound about right to you, Tosh?” 

Toshiko nodded. 

“Owen!” Jack yelled. 

“What?” the smaller man bit back. 

“Is the ash dangerous?” 

“Unless you go about breathing it in, it seems alright, for now,” Owen reported. 

“Any idea what it was before it got burnt up?” Jack asked, a bit more relaxed now that there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. 

At that moment, Ianto came back with more coffee and tea. This caused appreciative grunts and hums around the Hub, and Jack’s question was promptly forgotten. 

A few seconds later, a quiet ‘Jack’ echoed around the room. Jack transferred his attention from his coffee to Toshiko. 

“You should have received warnings about these things from the system as soon as they happened; the atmospheric disturbance and the anomalous weather reports, I mean.” 

It sounded slightly uncertain, but only because Toshiko’s genius mind was already running through scenarios that would cause her computer programs to malfunction, and most of those scenarios weren’t very nice. 

Jack realized she was absolutely right, and resolutely set down his coffee. 

“Check all your systems, Tosh,” he requested, before turning to Gwen and ordering: “Pull up all the surveillance from inside the Hub from around that time.” 

“Fall asleep on the job?” Owen drawled. Jack shot him a glare, but only a short one. There were more important things to worry about. 

“Shouldn’t you be figuring out what the ash was before it became ash?” he suggested to Owen, even as his attention was already on the footage Gwen was pulling up. 

Owen, in response, grumbled a bit and retreated, going back to work. 

Toshiko was mumbling under her breath as well, and Jack could only assume she hadn’t found the problem with the computer warning systems yet. 

The footage Gwen had pulled up wasn’t showing anything interesting, either. That was rather more of a problem, since it wasn’t actually showing anything at all. There was no footage of last night, starting as early as 1:00 AM. Footage resumed at 6:00 AM exactly, with an empty hub. At 6:23, Jack came walking into view, apparently having just gotten out of the shower. A few minutes later showed Ianto entering the Hub and making his way to the kitchenette. 

Jack was silent at what he saw. It was inexplicable to him in so many ways, he didn’t quite know how to react. For one, he never showered for that long when he was alone. 

The more worrying bit, of course, was that he couldn’t remember what had happened last night, including why and when he’d made the decision to have a shower. 

Gwen was looking at him expectantly, but it was Tosh who broke the silence. 

“There is absolutely no sign of tampering anywhere,” she announced, sounding slightly defeated. 

Jack ran off, back to the showers. The others all protested his sudden, unexplained moves. Owen, Toshiko, and Gwen followed him down anyway. 

They found Jack, standing over the laundry bin, grabbing at clothes that were dirty – and undeniably his. 

He looked distressed. 

“We’re dealing with possession, then?” Owen asked. 

“No,” answered Jack, resolutely, still staring at the clothes covered in engine grease, dust, and something else. 

“Then what?” Gwen demanded, “Jack, if you know something, you should tell us.” 

The Captain let out a long breath. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, like a distant echo of something he should remember.

“I can think of only one man,” he paused for a split second on the word, “who could cause all this.” 

Three pairs of curious eyes looked at him. 

He didn’t immediately answer the curious looks, which gave his teammates the chance to draw their own conclusions. 

“It’s that Doctor guy, isn’t it?” Owen snarled. 

The others looked from Owen to Jack and back, and concluded from the look on Jack’s face that Owen was probably right. Their moods soured. 

They still didn’t know even half of what had happened in the time their Captain had been away, after he ran off with the blue box and that alien. They did know that they still hadn’t entirely forgiven him for it. 

Jack sighed, before straightening his spine. 

“Yes, it was probably him. We need to find him.” 

There were spluttered protests at that. 

“Listen,” Jack cut over them, “I’m not going anywhere without you lot, but the Doctor could be in some serious trouble. We should at least check if he’s still around.” 

“Far as I can tell,” Owen started, “he was here, he blew up a spaceship with your help, and he left. How would he be in trouble?” 

“Didn’t you say he was your friend?” Toshiko asked. 

Jack ignored Owen, but nodded in confirmation to Tosh’ question. 

“Then why did he erase your memories?” Tosh continued. 

Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise, even if he should have known they’d figure him out. 

Gwen snickered. “Really, Jack, you’re an open book sometimes,” she told him. 

Jack rubbed his eyes, suddenly a bit tired. “It’s one of the reasons I’m worried,” he admitted. “The Doctor doesn’t usually do this, unless whole Timelines are at stake.” 

“Doesn’t that mean we should leave it alone?” Owen interjected. 

Jack knew the gruff doctor was right, but he’d never admit it. “I couldn’t leave it alone if I wanted to. We need to be sure the threat has been dealt with, at least.”

He plastered a bright grin onto his face. “Let’s do this, people, we have a blue box to find.” 

Toshiko rushed back to her computers. Any and every anomalous energy signature, she’d find it. Gwen, too, rushed back to her workstation, where she started going over the surveillance footage outside the Hub. 

Owen, on the other hand, grumbled something, crossed his arms, and sat down on the couch, his job done for the moment. Ianto, too, made himself scarce until his services would be needed again. 

It wasn’t long before Tosh found something: there was a slight drain on the power of the Rift since just a little while before the atmospheric disturbance had taken place. 

Immediately, Jack, Owen, and Gwen made for the SUV. 

Toshiko was tracking where the power was going, and would lead the team there. 

They drove nearly all the way to Swanbridge, before Toshiko told them to get off the road. It was a bit of a challenge to park the SUV, with so much growth on either side of the road, but they were Torchwood, so they managed. 

The path led them towards the rocky beaches - now covered in ash - that made up the coast around that area. It wasn’t long before they spotted something blue through the trees. Jack thought he could see a figure leaning against the blue shape, just on the edge between the trees and the beach. 

He signalled his team to stay back, and walked towards the blue shape, ready for anything. 

The Captain approached slowly, inexplicably wary, even though he was pretty sure he knew what he’d find. 

The figure leaning back against the box became clearer with every step he took, and Jack could feel memories he didn’t know he had echoing in his mind. And where did the knowledge of the engines of a ship type he was sure he’d never encountered before come from? 

“Hello, Jack,” someone greeted him. 

Jack smiled, wide enough that his cheeks would hurt if he kept it up. Simultaneously, questions started whirring in his mind, enough that he'd never be able to remember all of them. 

The Captain stepped forward to sit down next to the figure still leaning against the blue box, and he vaguely wondered if he’d remember the answers to his questions by tonight.

Right now, that didn’t seem to matter at all.


End file.
